Financial tips & advice

High Cost of Car Ownership

Owning and running a car is an expensive business, just look at some of the potential costs you will be required to pay; tax, insurance, maintenance, hire purchase/finance costs and of course the fuel needed to run the car! There are some families which spend more on their car per week than they spend on their food or heating bills for their home.

Finance is all about number crunching, have you ever worked how many days each week you actually use your car, divided the monthly payments you make and become aware at just exactly how much you are spending per car use?

If you find you don’t use your car on a daily basis why not look into the more cost effective methods of transport. For those that only take lengthy journeys on an irregular basis promotional car rental vouchers may be the ideal solution. It won’t take long to find discount coupons and vouchers to save money on the hire fee and all you will be left with is the fuel costs and then a small hire charge. Although you may think this would be far more expensive once you have worked out the cost per use of your own car many of us will quickly become surprised at how much money you can save!

In addition to the money saved through not having to pay for the car, maintenance and tax as you won’t have the car readily available to you, you will find you swap your short journeys for walking, saving you money, improving your health and of course reducing your carbon footprint!

Commuters may write this idea off completely but you shouldn’t, look into the alternatives to having a car! Public transport where you get the opportunity to use your time more effectively, even if it is just reading the daily news it is a better way to spend your time over driving! Another alternative is car sharing, the increase in car sharing services means you can find someone who does a similar commute to you and join in on their journey for a small fee. Chances are this will be cheaper than owning a car and you still avoid any disadvantages of public transport! The Collaborative Fund put together a great piece on the benefits and numbers behind car sharing at Future Of Car Sharing!